Race Report: 2022 Watsonville Criterium - Men's Cat 4/5

Race: 2022 Watsonville Criterium - Men's Cat 4/5

Date: 7/9/22

AVRT Racers: Daniel, George, Colin

Top Result: Daniel (10th / 50)

Course: Link to the Strava segment. The course was fairly basic yet had some more dynamics over the typical 4 corner crits. The start/finish line was on a small hill. Another notable factor in the course that caught a lot of riders out was the poor road surface quality. Besides the uneven pavement, there were a couple horizontal gutters across the road that were pretty bumpy and could throw you off your line if you were not paying attention.

Nutrition: Some gummy bears before the race and just 1 bottle with some electrolytes.

Race Recep: With a field of 50, our strategy was to just stay near the front and see how the race plays out. Given that none of us have raced this before, and the technical aspects such as the hill, and sharp corners, we just wanted to stay near the front and avoid getting caught out in a crash or the field separated. The first 25 minutes were absolutely flying. Given the size of the field and “eagerness” of newer riders, dive bombs were happening at almost every corner which caused the field to slow down and accelerate endlessly. I’d work my way to the front, get cut off in some corner or take a bad line, and find myself back in 15th wheel. This went until about halfway into the race where on the start/finish hill a couple of riders threw in a huge attack. I was about 5 wheels back and tried to follow but the gap had opened up enough where the riders in front of me blew up and couldn’t close it so it was up to me. I pulled on the front a little bit but after noticing that I had the whole field on my wheel again I sat up, thinking there is the second half of the race to catch them. This ended up being the wrong move as the winner, Matt Koenig (now racing for us!!) solo-ed away from that breakaway for the rest of the race to take the win. 

But back to our group, while the pace settled down a bit after a large portion of the field got sent out the back, nobody would really pull through on the front. The pace would be fast for a few turns, then everyone sat up, and repeat.

Coming into the last few laps, I realized there was no way we’re catching the front, so while I rotated through a bit soft pedaling, I was mostly conserving for the finish. Coming into the last lap I was really happy with my position sitting around 10th wheel. From the warm ups I knew I couldn’t hold a powerful sprint out of the last corner all the way up the hill, so I wanted to aim for 2nd or 3rd wheel coming out of the final turn. However the second to last turn chaos ensued as everyone stopped pedaling and instead of carrying my momentum and just spending the energy to stay near the front, I waited to see who would continue the leadout. In this confusion I got shuffled back and coming out of the final corner, I had to sprint from quite a ways back to weave through to the finish. 

Overall the race felt like it was very stressful and we came away with quite a few lessons learned as a team afterwards.